


Penance

by ArianneMaya



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, M/M, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 08:05:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArianneMaya/pseuds/ArianneMaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He’s free again but it feels like the slavers and everything they forced him to do still have a hold on him. If he doesn’t find a way to free himself, he knows his sanity will slip from his grasp, little by little until there’s nothing left of him.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Penance

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for my kink-bingo square, whipping/flogging. Many thanks to Leela for the beta. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

_The girl is young, so young, maybe five or six, maybe younger. She’s small, so small, and scared, running to find someone, anyone who can help._

_She sees him and runs toward him. She doesn’t ask for help like some others did, but she recognizes the marks on his arms. Warrior. Guardian. Protector._

_She gets near enough and grabs for his arm, clinging to him._

_He wants to help her. He wants it so damn bad._

_But the orders, the collar override everything he’s been taught, changing his life’s very purpose._

Find them and kill them all.

_The little girl chokes for air when his hands find her throat._

***

Terrance gasps for air as he wakes up. He’s nauseated and covered in sweat. With trembling fingers, he pushes away his blanket, careful not to wake Adam who’s sleeping by his side. As he moves, he feels the rocks and the holes that the bedroll doesn’t cover that well, reminding him of where he is. Deep in the forest, nowhere near a town. Safe. 

He brings a hand to his neck, an old habit he’s never been able to get rid of. All he can feel are the scars marring his skin, the only remnants of the moment when Adam took the collar off his neck. 

It feels like it happened a lifetime ago, and yet every time the nightmares get bad enough to wake him up, it’s like it was yesterday. That’s if he manages to sleep at all; he’s lost count of how many sleepless nights he’s had since Adam got him out of slavery. Every time he closes his eyes, images flash bright behind his eyelids. 

Just the thought brings a new wave of nausea. Terrance moves as fast as he can and barely makes it to the side of the river before he throws up. 

His stomach heaves until only bile comes out. When he finally catches his breath, he’s dizzy from exhaustion. He hasn’t slept well in far too long. 

He cups water in his bare hands to rinse his mouth. When he lets his hands fall, his palms look darker than he’s used to seeing them, as if they are still tainted with blood. 

Terrance sighs. His nightmares are creeping into reality, once again. No matter how hard he tries to leave his past behind, he can’t forget. He’s free again but it feels like the slavers and everything they forced him to do still have a hold on him. If he doesn’t find a way to free himself, he knows his sanity will slip from his grasp, little by little until there’s nothing left of him. 

He needs to do something. 

***

The next day, when he and Adam are looking at their map to try and figure out the easiest way to get to Scarlett’s, Adam says, “All we have to do is follow the river. Give us two weeks, maybe three, and we’ll be home.”

“Yeah. Maybe.” Terrance stares at the map until he finds what he’s looking for. “This road would also get us there, right? And we won’t risk too many bad encounters, either.”

Adam follows the line with a finger. “But it’s a least a couple more days, and that’s if we’re lucky. Why do you want to go that way?”

“You don’t have to come with me.” Terrance points to a small square on the map. “But this way, there’s a temple.”

Adam tenses, his face closes off. “Why? Don’t you think you have enough scars as it is?”

“No, I don’t.” 

Because Terrance was a collared slave, whose free will was taken away from him. He never needed anything to keep him in line. The collar took care of everything. 

“I don’t,” Terrance repeats, bringing a hand to his neck. “If you don’t count these?” He points at the burns left behind when the collar was forced off of his neck. “I don’t have any scars. I spent four years fighting, four years killing, and I don’t have a scratch.”

He waits to see if Adam will say anything. When Adam doesn’t, Terrance says, his voice hardening, “I don’t have a scratch because the people I killed weren’t warriors. They had no way to defend themselves.”

“It wasn’t your fault—”

“It doesn’t matter, Adam. I know it was done against my will, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was me. That I remember everything.”

The only reason he was so efficient at killing was that the slavers used everything he’d been taught against him. That they knew the tattoos on his arm would make people trust him. It’s why those were never reworked into the kind of sleeve that would identify him as a slave. 

“I’m exhausted. I can almost never fall asleep. If I do, nightmares shake me up so badly that when I wake up, I have no idea what’s real and what’s not. I’m losing myself.”

“And you think taking a beating will solve everything?” All the fight has gone out of Adam. His voice is so soft that he sounds like a little lost boy.

It makes Terrance look at Adam for real and try to explain. “It’s the only part of me the slavers didn’t twist beyond belief. Everything else I am, they turned against me. No, it won’t solve everything, but it might help.”

Adam shakes his head. “It was their doing. Not yours.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Terrance sighs. “It still feels like I betrayed my people. Those?” He points to the tattoos on his arm. “They don’t have any meaning. The slavers made me keep them because they knew people would trust me because of them. And every single person who thought they’d found safety found death instead. I betrayed my vows in the worst way possible.” 

Terrance expects Adam to argue again and realizes that he would welcome the fight. It would give him an excuse to go to the temple alone. He has no idea if he can go through this with Adam by his side.

Instead, he feels Adam’s gentle fingers on his forearm. “You’re not the only one who had to make hard choices, Ter.”

Feeling like a slap would hurt less, Terrance removes his arm from Adam’s grasp as fast as he can. “Do you even listen to yourself? Yes, what you did was awful, but you decided it was worth it if it let you get me back. It was always your choice. I never had one.”

“Please, just listen to me—”

“No.” Terrance forces himself to look Adam in the eyes. “You listen. Everything I believed in was taken away from me. Everything I thought I was, destroyed. What happens in temples is one of the few parts of my old life that’s still intact. I was collared from the moment I was captured. They never beat me to get what they wanted out of me. They never needed to.”

He takes a deep breath as he does his best to hold in the tears burning in his eyes. “I need to go through this. Because I still see it as what it’s intended to be: an expiation ritual, not a punishment. It might help me when everything else has failed.”

There’s no answer. Against his will, Terrance’s voice drops to a whisper, all the fight bleeding out of him. “You don’t have to come with me. Follow the river road. Go see Scarlett and Riff and everybody. But I need to do this.”

Silence is his only answer. Then Adam moves closer, fitting a hand to Terrance’s throat, slowly enough to let Terrance get out of the way if he wants to. Their kiss is soft and sweet and full of sorrow.

“I won’t say I understand, because I don’t.” Adam says, his breath tickling the skin of Terrance’s neck. “But I’m not letting you go through this alone. I’m coming with you.”

***

The voices should hurt more, maybe, but they belong to kids. Not one of them looks older than ten. 

“Who are they?”

“I don’t understand. Who’s the master? Who’s the slave?”

“Where’s his collar?”

“ _Enough._ ”

The voice is soft, but it’s enough to make all three kids guiltily turn around to look at the priestess who just came out of the temple.

“Don’t you kids have chores to do?”

Small mouths drop open as they start protesting all at once, “But you said we could help in the temple today!”

The priestess shakes her head. “If you can’t be more respectful toward our visitors, no, you can’t.”

“But…”

The small voices fade as the priestess escorts the kids back to their parents in a way that makes it clear nothing they can say will make her change her mind. 

Terrance is still looking at them as they disappear around the corner of the temple.

“Are you sure about this?”

Adam’s voice brings Terrance out of his contemplation. The temple stands in front of them, surrounded by trees. The place is old and out in the open, but in the middle of the day, it’s safe. 

“I need it,” Terrance says as he remembers what’s waiting for him inside. It’s not enough to scare him. After everything he went through during his time as a slave, nothing can. 

Adam nods. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” Terrance can’t help but say again. “I can do this alone.”

Instead of answering, Adam looks at the temple, then he says, softly, “Maybe I need this too.”

“As long as you don’t try and stop me,” Terrance reminds him. 

He waits until he has Adam’s attention again, until he has confirmation that Adam won’t try and talk him out of it again before he walks toward the priestess who’s coming back alone. Adam follows on his heels. 

“I’m sorry. We don’t see many walk in here of their own free will. The kids had no idea how to react.”

Terrance smiles a little at that: the priestess who’s now greeting them is quite young, too. “I don’t mind.”

He’s grateful for it, actually. That little misunderstanding left him just enough time to get Adam to promise that he won’t try and make Terrance change his mind.

The priestess looks at him. “Why are you here?”

Terrance feels Adam tense beside him, but he doesn’t say anything as Terrance undoes the scarf around his neck, exposing the scars the collar left when it was removed. “I was a mercenary slave. I need to make penance for the people I killed.”

“You know it wasn’t your fault, right?” The priestess keeps her tone even, and Terrance knows she’s not trying to talk him out of it. She’s just reminding him of a fact. “Slaves don’t have control over their actions. The slave’s collar makes sure of that.”

“I know. It still feels like I have their blood on my hands.”

It doesn’t matter that it happened while he was somebody else’s puppet. He still remembers how he killed each and every single one of them. The images haunt him at night, bright behind his eyelids. He can still hear them screaming, begging for mercy when he could give them none. 

“Good enough. Follow me, please.”

They make their way inside the temple. The room she guides them to is bare, nothing but grey stone and, in the middle, ropes dangling from the ceiling. Terrance eyes them suspiciously, but the priestess shakes her head. “If you’re here of your own free will, you have nothing to fear. The ropes are only there to help. They will hold you up if you need it, but nothing more.”

As Terrance makes his way to the center of the room, he hears the priestess address Adam. “You don’t have to stay. It can be painful to watch, especially for a loved one.”

“I’m not here to watch. If that’s okay with you.”

Terrance barely listens to them as he strips his clothes off. All he can focus on is the forgiveness that will be granted to him. He only hopes it will also free him of all the guilt he’s carrying.

“It’s not my choice to make. I’m sure you’re both aware of that,” the priestess reminds them.

Terrance forces himself to turn around, to look right at Adam as he says, “I trust him.”

It’s enough to make Adam drop his mask for a second, for all the love to show on his face, reminding Terrance how hurt Adam is by the fact that no matter how hard he tries, he can’t make all of Terrance’s suffering go away. The strength that brought Terrance to the temple surfaces again, and he turns his back to Adam as he brings his hands up to grab at the ropes. He twists them around his forearms to give himself a good grip, but they don’t automatically tighten as he’s seen them do multiple times. As the priestess said, they’re only there in case he needs them. 

Behind him, he hears, “Do you know how to handle a whip?”

“I was a slave holder, the kind who doesn’t use collars. Yes, I know how.”

He hears small steps on the stone floor, and Adam’s last sentence seem to resonate in the room, reminding Terrance of everything Adam had to give up in order to get him out of slavery. He needs to make penance for that as well.

The priestess stands in front of him. “Why are you here, warrior?”

It doesn’t matter that it’s part of the ritual. The word still makes Terrance flinch. “Don’t call me that.”

A small hand slips under his chin to make him pay attention. “It’s still who you are. Even if they tried to make you forget it.”

He nods, even though it doesn’t feel like it’s a part of him anymore. Everything he was taught as he grew up was turned against him, used to transform him into the perfect weapon. 

“I’m asking you again. Why are you here?”

He takes a deep breath. There’s no going back. “To make penance for the people I killed.”

“How great a penance do you need to receive?”

Here he hesitates. He was planning on coming here alone, but he can’t let Adam’s presence change anything. Not if he wants the ritual to actually help. 

“As much as it takes to wash the blood off my hands.”

The priestess stares at him, as if she wants to make sure she heard him right. Then she says, “You need to bleed.”

His mouth is suddenly so dry that he’s barely able to whisper, “Yes. Please.”

“As you wish.”

He closes his eyes, but nothing happens. Instead he hears the priestess say, “You can still hand me the whip.”

“No.”

Terrance is tempted to tell Adam not to be so stubborn, but something in Adam’s voice stops him. Maybe they both need to make their peace with everything they had to do, but each in their own way. 

The priestess rests her hands on his lower back, and moves them up, then down, showing Adam the space where there isn’t enough skin and fat, where Terrance’s body is the most vulnerable. “Not here.”

“I know.” Adam replies in a formal tone that Terrance isn’t used to.

She steps away and Terrance tightens his muscles again, anticipating the pain. Instead, he hears her voice. “Breathe, warrior.”

A long breath, a second one and the tension releases him. On the third exhale, the whip falls, stealing his breath away in one long line of pain across his back. 

“Keep breathing.” The priestess, again, and Terrance forces himself to focus only on breathing. Long, deep breaths that keep his feet on the ground. 

Terrance closes his eyes as the whip connects with his skin in a steady rhythm. He can count away the seconds between every breath, between every hit. An even pain. Nothing like the punishments he’s seen others endure through the months, where each hit was harder than the one before, where the only goal was to make them scream and weep. 

Each lash of the whip against his skin is a different face. Every time pain blossoms in a hard line on his back is a woman, a child, a man who couldn’t defend himself. And the whip keeps falling, a little harder now, both punishment and forgiveness. Memories of every person he killed, and a reminder that he’s still alive. 

The heat builds on his skin with each new hit, a promise and a threat all at once. Terrance winds the rope tighter around his arms, another pain he inflicts on himself to help bear the one slowly building on his back. 

“You can scream if you need to.”

The priestess’s voice is low and even, yet it’s as if she was speaking right in Terrance’s ear. On the next blow, when his skin is ripped open and Adam doesn’t relent in any way, he lets his head fall and doesn’t fight the groan of pain that escapes him. 

Blinding white pain explode behind his eyelids every time his skin gives away under the assault, blood swelling to the surface and slowly dripping down his back. 

Steady blows, the same pain over and over, wave after wave until the ropes are the only thing holding Terrance up. Images take over his mind. Faces, voices, little hands, pleading, begging. _Have mercy. Have mercy._

It’s the memories, bright, burning just as badly as the ripped skin of his back that brings the tears to Terrance’s eyes. A stream that slowly rolls down his cheeks, blurring the whole room. As if nothing exists anymore but the noise of the whip and the memories that never leave him in peace.

For a second, it stops, just long enough for Terrance to hear Adam say, “Forgive yourself, Ter. Remember that you’re still alive.”

Terrance gives himself over to the memories, lets the ropes hold him, and falls into the unyielding rhythm of the whip. The pain becomes his whole world, yet as his back bleeds, the experience takes on a completely new meaning. The guilt slowly ebbs away as he’s reminded that it’s Adam’s hand holding the whip. That even with everything they had to go through, Adam’s still there. He’s not going anywhere. 

It’s only when he whimpers in a broken voice, “Please, forgive me,” that Adam stops. The pain explodes in Terrance, everywhere at once, nearly sending him to his knees before he has Adam on one side, the young priestess on the other, holding him up.

“You are forgiven, warrior. No one could hold you responsible,” the priestess says. 

He can hear the smile in her voice. Tears are still falling from his eyes, full-body sobs making him shake. Gentle hands untwist the ropes from around his arms and lower him to his knees, then the priestess steps away and he’s clinging to Adam, tears soaking Adam’s neck and shirt. 

Nothing exists but the both of them, together. Nothing but Adam’s hands on the small of his back, Adam’s voice in his ear, reminding him that he’s alive, that they are both alive and free. 

When Terrance stops crying, Adam will hold him, bathe him and clean him up. Adam will dress the wounds on his back. They’ll sleep together in one of the rooms the temple offers, in each other’s arms.

And tomorrow, when they leave, Terrance will be ready to leave his past behind the closed doors of the temple, and start living again.


End file.
